The Tale of Genji: The original novel—a classic of Japanese and world literature

cresteb

Posts : 953Join date : 2015-11-17

A thousand years ago, a Japanese woman began writing a story that was not quite fiction, not quite non-fiction, telling the story of the world of the Japanese imperial court but creating its own world, too—the world of Genji.

The shining Genji, a man of wealth and power, devotes himself to love – at the risk of losing everything. Enter the court of medieval Japan, and follow Genji’s attempts to find perfect love and a beautiful life in the midst of the back-biting, scheming, and deceit of the powerful people around him.

It is, rather, a lively and astonishingly nuanced portrait of a refined society where every dalliance is an act of political consequence, a play of characters whose inner lives are rich and changeable. Chief of these is "the shining Genji," the son of the emperor and a man whose passionate impulses create great turmoil in his world and very nearly destroy him

Written in the eleventh century, this exquisite portrait of courtly life in medieval Japan is widely celebrated as the world’s first novel. Genji, the Shining Prince, is the son of an emperor. He is a passionate character with a tempestuous nature, family circumstances, love affairs, alliances, and shifting political fortunes.

The Tale of Genji was later turned into a scroll of pictures known as an "emakimono". This form of storytelling led to the creation of "giga" which translates to Funny pictures. Japan later began experimenting with shadow puppetry and continued this path even after Disney had already created the first Mickey Mouse cartoon.

After WWII Japan's first anime and manga were created. Osamu Tezuka is the creator of the first anime and manga. "New Treasure Island", after watching Disney's creation of "Bambi". This would later lead him to make the first anime, "Tetsuan Atom". This animation became so popular that it was later dubbed into English and renamed "Astro Boy".